The incident regarding coffee and bakery chain 85°C has united the public and the international community in anger over China’s shameless bullying. You would think that this would cause China to show some restraint, but once President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) returned to Taiwan, China continued its foul play and spent a huge sum of money to buy diplomatic relations with El Salvador.
Not only did this action not succeed in suppressing Taiwan, the international community reacted even more strongly. Members of US Congress proposed an end to aid to El Salvador and the US Department of State, citing the Taiwan Relations Act, urged China to show restraint and to refrain from coercive actions that would endanger the safety of Taiwanese and Taiwan’s social and economic system, in addition to saying that it is reviewing the US’ relationship with El Salvador.
Buying off El Salvador was part of China’s plan. Beijing will continue to use the Belt and Road Initiative — its debt trap diplomacy — and financial aid to lure Taiwan’s allies, which means that Taiwan would face the prospect of more countries severing diplomatic relations, causing its international space to shrink further.
Taiwanese must treat this as the new normal and make it the basis of policy thinking when coming up with a response. The current formalistic expressions of regret and condemnation of China might help Taiwan vent off some of the public’s unhappiness, but they have no practical effect.
Rather than feeling sorry for themselves and lamenting the heartlessness of international political realities, it would be better for Taiwanese to restrain their anger and explore the situation to find out precisely why Taiwan is coming under pressure and take a rational approach to finding a solution.
In the face of Chinese intimidation, what is Taiwan’s Achilles’ heel? China’s ascent is powered mainly by its economic growth, which has given it the huge capital it to initiate its debt trap diplomacy, the Belt and Road Initiative, around the world. Investment by Taiwanese businesspeople in China over the past three decades has played a big role in this development.
When China just started opening up and attracting foreign investment, domestic fundamentalists tried to prevent this from happening, while the West was boycotting China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. However, as China’s development faced these problems, many Taiwanese businesspeople moved to China and effectively helped alleviate the effects of the Western boycott.
Looking at China’s current position in the international political and economic system and its surging nationalism, Beijing will of course not recognize the contribution of Taiwanese businesspeople and will even do what it can to distort facts and claim that they are investing in China to take advantage of it.
This kind of thinking has been expanded to include Taiwanese entertainers in China and Chinese tourists in Taiwan to the preposterous extent that anyone who wants to earn money off Chinese must not support Taiwanese independence.
Regardless of how the question of the contribution of Taiwanese businesspeople to China is resolved, China’s economic strength and Taiwan’s heavy economic reliance on China has created an asymmetric cross-strait relationship.
This has allowed Beijing to put pressure on Taiwanese businesses in China that do not want to make their political views known and extend its reach into Taiwan and use its monopoly powers to co-opt and nurture a domestic Taiwanese fifth column, as well as political forces and individuals whose national identity lean toward unification. These are the structural reasons why it is so difficult for Taiwan to respond forcefully to Chinese pressure.
This shows that if Taiwan is to withstand Chinese pressure, it must reduce Taiwanese investment in China, induce Taiwanese businesses to return to Taiwan and set up their business here, and rebuild the industrial supply chain that was universally praised during the “Taiwanese miracle.”
This would effectively weaken Taiwan’s connection with China, revive the manufacturing industry, improve employment and raise salaries. This would not only make it possible to avoid being restricted by Chinese intimidation and threats, it would also promote economic growth that is tangible to the Taiwanese public.
The government has already eliminated obstacles to investment such as the “five shortages” (land, water, electricity, talent and workers) and is using policy and tax incentives to nurture the “five plus two” industries — an “Asian Silicon Valley,” smart machinery, green energy, biotechnology and national defense, as well as establishing a new agricultural business model and a circular economy — but the force and scope required to revive the economy is still lacking.
Another fact that Taiwanese must face is that replacing formal diplomacy with practical relations must become the focus of the government’s efforts to expand Taiwan’s international space. Saying that the number of diplomatic allies is not important and that practical relations lie at the foundation of Taiwan’s participation in the international community might sound like an attempt to make a virtue of necessity.
However, this is the how interactions between Taiwan and the international community seem to operate at the moment.
It is undeniable that all of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies added together still do not measure up to the practical relations with nondiplomatic allies the US, Japan and the EU.
It would be better for Taiwan to direct its restricted resources toward active participation in the international community than to engage in checkbook war with China over diplomatic allies, instead relying on its democracy, liberty and human rights to fulfill its responsibilities as a civilized, developed nation.
As long as Taiwan’s actions comply with international universal values, the international community would be able to oppose Chinese pressure and include Taiwan as a member of the global village.
The result of China’s hegemonic dreams of unification has driven it to near hysteria in its suppression of Taiwan. Add to this its constantly growing economic and military might and it is clear that the pressure on Taiwan will only increase.
However, the difficult situation that Taiwan currently finds itself in within the cross-strait relationship is the result of having used China as a production base in the past to avoid the cost of industrial transformation. Faced with an irrational but strong enemy, relying on strong verbal condemnations is, unfortunately, completely useless.
The only option now is to reduce dependence on China, aim for pragmatic participation in the international community and build more substantive partnerships. This is the only way to overcome China’s domineering suppression and humiliating bullying and focus on Taiwan’s autonomy.
Translated by Perry Svensson
On Sunday, 13 new urgent care centers (UCC) officially began operations across the six special municipalities. The purpose of the centers — which are open from 8am to midnight on Sundays and national holidays — is to reduce congestion in hospital emergency rooms, especially during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year. It remains to be seen how effective these centers would be. For one, it is difficult for people to judge for themselves whether their condition warrants visiting a major hospital or a UCC — long-term public education and health promotions are necessary. Second, many emergency departments acknowledge
US President Donald Trump’s seemingly throwaway “Taiwan is Taiwan” statement has been appearing in headlines all over the media. Although it appears to have been made in passing, the comment nevertheless reveals something about Trump’s views and his understanding of Taiwan’s situation. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US and Taiwan enjoy unofficial, but close economic, cultural and national defense ties. They lack official diplomatic relations, but maintain a partnership based on shared democratic values and strategic alignment. Excluding China, Taiwan maintains a level of diplomatic relations, official or otherwise, with many nations worldwide. It can be said that
Victory in conflict requires mastery of two “balances”: First, the balance of power, and second, the balance of error, or making sure that you do not make the most mistakes, thus helping your enemy’s victory. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made a decisive and potentially fatal error by making an enemy of the Jewish Nation, centered today in the State of Israel but historically one of the great civilizations extending back at least 3,000 years. Mind you, no Israeli leader has ever publicly declared that “China is our enemy,” but on October 28, 2025, self-described Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP) propaganda
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made the astonishing assertion during an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, published on Friday last week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. She also essentially absolved Putin of blame for initiating the war in Ukraine. Commentators have since listed the reasons that Cheng’s assertion was not only absurd, but bordered on dangerous. Her claim is certainly absurd to the extent that there is no need to discuss the substance of it: It would be far more useful to assess what drove her to make the point and stick so
RSS